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Obama Planning New Rules For Oil and Gas Industry's Methane Emissions
mdsolar sends this quote from the NY Times:
In President Obama's latest move using executive authority to tackle climate change, administration officials will announce plans this week to impose new regulations on the oil and gas industry's emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, according to a person familiar with Mr. Obama's plans. The administration's goal is to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production by up to 45 percent by 2025 from the levels recorded in 2012.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan. The White House declined to comment on the effort. Methane, which leaks from oil and gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution — but it is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on global warming.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the proposed regulations this summer, and final regulations by 2016, according to the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration had asked the person not to speak about the plan. The White House declined to comment on the effort. Methane, which leaks from oil and gas wells, accounts for just 9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution — but it is over 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, so even small amounts of it can have a big impact on global warming.
No, this is just an attempt to get oil/gas prices back up since they're loosing so many tax dollars. Prices at the pump should start climbing back up now based solely upon this announcement whether it will ever actually be enacted or not.
Methane is a far more powerful (25 times or so) greenhouse gas than c02, so sealing leaky problem wells and extraction sites makes perfect sense.
But since Obama proposed it, I'm against it.
Obama cut a deal with Fox News to give them real material. Then, Fox's talking heads will get their old whit conservative male audience riled up who will then watch even more Fox. Fox's numbers improve dramatically and they charge more for advertizing. After Obama is out of office, he will then become VP of content gettery and get paid millions and millions of dollars. See, it's all Fox News fault.
Getting Josh Ernest to STFU would help with methane emissions. This guy is such a tool, he should be a spokesman for Craftsman...
Rules for cow farts, great.
Legacies are for suckers. When you're dead, you don't care.
If you want to start actually regulating the oil industry, how about making fracking illegal and putting sanctions on any country that allows it.
Obama has always been trying to reduce domestic oil production.
Gas taxes are per gallon, not per dollar. They make more in taxes when gas prices drop and people worry less about saving gas.
He sure is making a lot of statements and promises now that his party has lost their majority.
He has no executive authority(including the epa) over businesses or the economy or creating laws for that matter. The proposals(president lobbies) have to go to house and senate. If nobody gives a shit about checks and balances anymore why in the world should the citizen give a shit about any law anymore?
Forcing big companies to pay for the damages they cause instead of pushing the costs on to the public?
How unamerican!
>> administration's goal is to cut methane emissions from oil and gas production by up to 45 percent by 2025
Good luck, pal. You'll be OOO for 7 solid years by then.
We need to spend more research money into how to burn off the cow farts.
9 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution is a bloody lot of greenhouse gas! Does the adding of the word "just" make it any less?
Who cares. He's a lame duck and nothing will stick at this point.
Such is the nature of any politician in their lame duck period. Happens after midterms are over, it'll tone down once his decisions affects the new presidential race. Then it'll get really heavy after there is a President-Elect.
Hopefully the Republican Congress will now find some balls and defund the EPA.
How much does this plan help to reduce a extrapolated increase in the temperature of the planet vs how much will it cost the economy? I think we all know this plan by President Obama will not affect the climate but it will hurt Americans.
Shut down all White Castle outlets.
Profits aren't made at the pump, they are made in the stock market, where a penny's fluctuation in price gain or lose billions in a second.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
There's NO chance these actions could ever have any positive affect on the environment. Obama knows this and he frankly doesn't care. The point of this to him is purely the politics and playing to his base.
The prices are down, people are happy. We can't have that.
There. Fixed it for you.
....waste is inefficiency and I'm for cleaning up the leaks.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
As a houston resident - this will change nothing.
Oh good, 2025 is just in time. Just ask any scientist. What they should do is get that damn fusion reactor working before 2020 so we don't have to dig up or process the oil (or burn it) in the first place!
The US system is horribly designed so incentive wise you actually have it backwards.
The public can't really tell who's fault is what when both sides point fingers, nor can they readily distinguish between the President and his party in congress. So they hold him accountable for everything that happens in government and every election is basically a referendum on whether the country is doing well.
So when the congress is controlled by another party it's actually in that congress's best interest to misgovern. Because the worse things get the more dissatisfied voters get, and more dissatisfied the voters the more they'll punish the President by voting the opposing party into congress.
There's a reason the Daily Show and Colbert Report could be so good by simply showing clips of politicians talking for large portions of the show. For a country of your size and wealth the quality of your governance is shockingly bad.
I stole this Sig
Methane doesn't last long in the atmosphere
>that '25 times as powerful as CO2' statistic is its equivalent over a 100-year period
Not according to the references I can find.
from http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014...
"...methane is a potent greenhouse gas, as well as a significant byproduct of using natural gas — advocated by many as a “bridge” to a lower-emissions future. But a direct comparison between methane and carbon dioxide, the most abundant greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, is complicated: While the standard figure used for emissions trading and technology evaluation says that, gram for gram, methane is about 30 times as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2, scientists say that’s an oversimplification.
''As reported in a paper published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, authored by MIT assistant professor of engineering systems Jessika Trancik and doctoral student Morgan Edwards, this conversion factor (called the global warming potential, or GWP) may significantly misvalue methane. Getting this conversion factor right is challenging because methane’s initial impact is much greater than that of CO2 — by about 100 times. But methane only stays in the atmosphere for a matter of decades, while CO2 sticks around for centuries. The result: After six or seven decades, the impact of the two gases is about equal, and from then on methane’s relative role continues to decline."
Or, if you prefer Wikipedia as a source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
So you're saying that the Bush II regime that Obama inherited, but never managed to use effectively is finally falling?
This seems like a reasonable goal. Methane is natural gas, why not capture and use it? Lots of places still flair tons of it off as part of the oil extraction process – so it may no longer be methane, but it is still carbon in the atmosphere with no useful purpose other than to make oil drilling easier.
Let’s face it Obama could cure cancer and a sizeable portion of the population led by Fox News would accuse him of putting doctors out of work. Natural gas is putting coal workers out of work, but the right blames Obama. Strange I though mining coals was dirty and dangerous and led to black lung. To the right those are all positive things because it shows what a strong work-ethic coal miners have.
How about we really try to make the future cleaner and safer and not scream so much about jobs. If jobs are going away in one sector the answer is to retrain and educate to work in new safer better sectors. Last century’s jobs will not keep our economy afloat in the information age.
I’ll probably get burned on mod points for saying this, but at least half these anger posts are probably some repressed prejudice and bigotry. Obama hasn’t been the greatest president ever – so evidently everyone made a mistake voting a black man to office. The economy is better; we have fewer troops fighting and no new wars. But the right is convinced it would have done 10x better. They sure screwed the pooch the administration before – lord help me how did they make so many gains in the midterms?
It slowly got safe to point to Obama’s failings at which point the mob turned. Early after the first election you could be accused of being a bigot for criticizing the president at all. Now the pendulum has swung the other way and the bigots have ample cover to yell criticism. Of course I will get angry replies that it is all about the jobs and the economy and our foreign policy – and you may well believe it. But really it just galls to have a black man in power, especially if he threatens anything that whites see as fair play and ethnics see as white privilege.
Letter To Iran
Wrong time of year to ask if I give a flying f*ck about global warming.
thinks it has long outgrown its usefulness and should be replaced.
More here: http://heartland.org/policy-documents/replacing-environmental-protection-agency
Obama is starting to sound more like his old campaign-trail self than the president we have come to know. I think it's probably easy for him to make promises now as he can just blame the Republican congress when they don't actually happen.
...what AC sibling said, and summarized for visibility: Federal gasoline taxes are a fixed amount per gallon, not a percentage of retail. Gas can be $0.50/gallon or $50.00/gallon, and the feds will take in the same amount based on actual consumption.
Higher gasoline taxes are however beneficial to the Oil Shale industry, which OPEC is currently trying to damage by creating the current glut.
I think it will however backfire on them as Russia is experiencing collateral damage from this, as is Venezuela, Canada, and other economies which rely on oil exports for a significant percentage of their wealth.
I don't see too much of an impact here in the US (outside of Texas and North Dakota), and what damage does occur may be offset by lower prices overall brought by the cheaper fuel/transportation costs.
I also doubt that Obama is specifically doing this to lash out at the oil industry, so much as doing it to satisfy his particular ideological and supporters' demands/desires as regards fossil fuels.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
need to fix a goof: higher gas prices are beneficial to the Shale Oil industry, not higher taxes.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
The profits are gathered or lost by a lot of folks:
* The largest consumers of petroleum such as airlines and other transportation companies stand to make or lose millions of dollars by a penny's change in prices.
* Oil companies obviously see a huge chunk of this, natch.
* Commodity traders
Not seeing too many of them (outside of Warren Buffett and his trains) who are friends of the president and would stand to benefit or lose anything significant from this. Then again, there is the Keystone XL pipeline... a crippled oil shale industry won't ship as much oil, which means that Mr. Buffett would have a stronger argument to continue shipping that oil on his rail lines.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Look at the data. The major improvements had nothing to do at all with environmental regulations. They're good at making expensive incremental improvements, but efficiency improving (cost reducing) technologies have driven the major improvements.
It say's 9% of the greenhouse gas emissions are methane, but not what percentage of that is from the oil and gas industry. I know cows produce a lot of methane.
If the goal is to help the environment, we need to make sure we are targeting the right area. That may be O&G, but the article wasn't clear other than O&G produces some amount of methane.
Right now, Democrats are perfectly cool with a quasi-liberal president ruling by fiat while Republicans are enraged by his unconstitutional actions.
With the next Republican president, when he or she issues law circumventing Congress, Republicans will cheer while Democrats are apoplectic.
Actual principles like checks and balances, limited federal power, etc don't hold much sway in US politics today, so much as where the actors stand relative to the political poles.
Frankly, pox on both their houses. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and Caesarism is fundamentally in opposition to what this country was founded on. But the oligarchs have decided otherwise.
-Styopa
Are we living in the same years? You'd think the economy was at republican level right now reading republican comments...
Don't cow farts account for the second highest source of methane? Well not cows alone but human created in cattle, manure storage farming etc. I think in 2002 or 2004 methane from cattle or human created accounted for the highest source of methane release beating out the oil fuel industry as highest contributor in the US for methane.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Even if it comes from a President who is far right of most Republican Presidents.
Including Nixon.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Don't cow farts account for the second highest source of methane? Well not cows alone but human created in cattle, manure storage farming etc. I think in 2002 or 2004 methane from cattle or human created accounted for the highest source of methane release beating out the oil fuel industry as highest contributor in the US for methane.
Actually, cow belches account for most (~90%) of the methane produced by cows. The remainder comes from the other end, either as farts or as outgasses from feces.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Are you a troll or just an idiot?
Fixed the subject for you. About 90% of the methane from cows comes from their belches. The rest comes from the other end, in the form of farts or outgassing feces.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Or maybe he just, ya know, wants to do something to help the environment?
I saw this and immediately saw bull fucking shit.
Not that I necessarily disagree with you, I just immediately went there in my mind because of the wording.
It doesn't have to be either/or.
I can't blame Obama, with someone like Inhofe being put in charge of the EPA. There is no other way, as Inhofe is pretty much a Koch brothers paid Oil Industry employee who wants to staff the EPA with oil industry execs. Inhofe thinks the whole idea of anything humans can do affecting the Earth is bunk, because the Bible says so. When your faced with someone who feels nothing bad can happen because some ancient myth says so AND they are in a power position, what other choices are there?
Does this mean that people employed in the oil & gas sector will be banned from eating beans and cabbage?
The important Obama announcement this week has nothing to do with gas.
It's the White House announcement, hours after the Charlie/supermarket massacre, that "Islam is a religion of Peace".
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/obama-spokesman-islam-its-peaceful-religion
Obama's purpose is simple:
cover up Mohammed's instruction "Oh muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_antisemitism
Not disagreeing with 'quality of governance,' but what on earth does size and wealth have to do with it, in terms of *helping*?
Not disagreeing with 'quality of governance,' but what on earth does size and wealth have to do with it, in terms of *helping*?
I guess I expect that if any country should have the resources with which to build a competent government it should be the US. Then again I can see it going the other way as the extra size & wealth creates niches for the crazy to prosper.
I stole this Sig
He could have placed restrictions on my uncle Leon's methane emissions after Thanksgiving dinner.
The number of people so instructed is unlikely to be in the thousands ; probably only in the dozens. So by releasing this information in this way, they've come very close to pointing the finger of suspicion directly at him (or her).
Way to protect your sources, guys. I hop that you get lots more people bringing you scoops. Not.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Good points, I would also add that methane is lighter (MW 16) than air (average MW = 29) and that which doesn't degrade will rise far enough above surface to not have as much of an impact.
In terms of greenhouse warming, it doesn't make much of a difference what altitude it's at. Slightly less pressure-broadening of the spectral line, I guess.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com